


Cruel Clocks

by TheDarkFlygon



Series: Sappho's Violet (Femslash February 2019) [10]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon Het Relationship, Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, F/M, Femslash February 2019, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, Near Death Experiences, Waiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 08:26:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17894990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkFlygon/pseuds/TheDarkFlygon
Summary: [Day 10: Waiting]Magdalena relishes in Louise's breathing, because waiting to know if a friend is going to be alright is painful.





	Cruel Clocks

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I kind of cheated, I know. But hey, Magda/Louise is the one canonical lesbian couple of this shabby original work, so rejoice!  
> Seriously, after A Glass of Wine, Novembre 2015 and the few extracts I've written about it for A Dandelion in Colombes, how much can I write about this specific instance? At least, this version is slightly different, considering Magda and Louise weren't in the waiting room in Novembre 2015.   
> I'm actually really proud of this one haha.

Time ticks ever so slowly, the numbers of her phone taking ages to change, seconds having turned into painful hours to wait through. Boredom tracks the smell of people who need to wait in weird conditions, when there is nothing to do than wait. Wait, and wait again, with the very few thoughts not guilty of dying of boredom obsessive and repeating themselves.

 

Waiting on hard plastic chairs, clearly put there because every other seat in the waiting room-slash-corridor, is uncomfortable. The air is hot and cold at the same time, the overworking heaters and exhausted doctors still trying to save lives around making oxygen heavy on the lungs; but the polar winds of the November night keep entering the place, making them all shivers, when their bodies are already taking the toll of sickening stress and anxiety.

 

Magdalena doesn’t know how long they are going to last this way before someone has to go vomit somewhere else, or faints under the strain. Louise is about to fall asleep, head lulling on her shoulder, their hands intertwined, arms crossed together. They’re both exhausted, she knows it, but seeing her fiancée this drained breaks her heart, well, breaks the few shards she had left in her chest. She’s herself mentally fatigued, body paralyzed by staying in the same place for so long, consciousness threatening to leave her if waiting is going to be longer and longer; but she must stay strong, they must all be, so her head lulls on Louise’s.

 

She glances at the two other occupants of their shitty makeshift bench. Eudes’s already asleep: the poor guy’s all bandaged from receiving glass shards in the arms and hips. He originally was with Henri and Christian, but they both left to get some rest. Eudes refused to go with them: he wanted to remain with his twin sister, on which he’s now leaning for comfort in his sleep. She’d have usually made fun of him, teased him on being asleep, or go the whole other way around and scold him for being an unsupportive piece of lazy crap; but he’s lost blood and she hasn’t, so she shuts the fuck up and she waits, yet again, for something to happen.

 

“Magda…” Louise rasps under her head, eyes looking blankly at the floor. “How long do we need to wait for something to happen…?”

“I don’t know, Loulou”, she answers in all honesty as she gives her fiancée a peck on the top of the head, the apple smell of her shampoo like an anchor in dire seas.

“Please tell me it’s gonna be all done soon…”

“I promise, Loulou.”

The truth is that Magdalena doesn’t know if things are ever going to be better soon.

 

She glances at Annabelle herself next. The girl is the one under the most stress of them all: even if her twin, her confident, is alive and somewhat well, there’s still a piece of her heart missing. Even if Magdalena took a hatred in him at first, she cannot deny Florian did a lot for Annabelle, starting by being her ideal boyfriend turned fiancé turned husband. She also can’t deny the guy has grown on her since their college days where she teased him because it amused her and because she was weary of a guy like him: the perfect romantic, really? She didn’t believe it, and she wouldn’t let a douchebag snatch Annabelle’s heart.

But the thing was, Annabelle had stolen Florian’s heart first, and she was afraid she wouldn’t pay attention to Louise and her once these two started dating.

 

“I’m worried for Flo”, Louise’s voice slurs again. “We’ve waited here for hours on hand…”

Magdalena doesn’t reply at first, yet she doesn’t know why. If it’s because her admitting she enjoys Florian’s presence would be admitting her defeat, she needs to get her shit together; because as funny as this running gag was, it’s lost all its value when Florian almost lost his life to some terrorist attack.

“Magda…?”

“I was… just thinking of how much I’d be stressed right now if I had almost lost you,” she replies, earnest yet hiding her shame away.

“Same here…”

Perhaps Annabelle is already mourning. Magdalena wouldn’t be too surprised to hear that: her husband has always had pretty terrible luck, and even if Annabelle was the luckiest person in the world, perhaps it wouldn’t be enough to save him.

 

And so Magdalena clutches her beloved’s hand harder, scared of the future for the first time in a decade, finally realizing the world has never been fine, that she could have lost her most precious person in a catastrophic shooting if Louise and she didn’t have a one-on-one dinner in some other part of the region that night. They could have accepted Eudes’s invitation to hang out together, and they could have almost lost each other.

 

As it stands, Magdalena and Louise should probably be happy it happened to Florian instead of them, but Annabelle’s grieving glaze and the weight of their own friendships prevent her from being any relieved; and so she clutches Louise against her chest, relishing in her heartbeats which are still here, still living, because they’re still alive; and if Annabelle didn’t feel so far away, she’d have pulled them into a hug like when they were in college, when they were still rather innocent and free from the horrors of this planet.

Instead, she relishes in Louise’s breathing, and lets a tear for her friend drip down her cheek.


End file.
